God Willing!

February 19, 1992

AS I left the shop, I said to the friendly receptionist, ll see you next week. She replied, "If the Lord be willing. I responded, "He will be! When I was outside I wondered "Now why did I say that? I knew that many people use the familiar expression without giving any serious thought to its actual meaning. But over the years, as I learned more and more about a loving God who tenderly cares for His children and experienced this loving care, I had begun to be disturbed by some of the implications of the ex pression. While I certainly want to be obedient to God's will, it seemed to me that sometimes people were using the phrase to indicate both a fatalistic acceptance of whatever might happen and an expectation that it probably would not be very good.

Such a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of God's will, perhaps more than any other cause, can be found at the root of many of mankind's afflictions. And how can we ever rise above our problems if we believe they are the will of God? Is there a way that we can recognize more easily what the will of God really is? Yes! The answer should be obvious: by learning more of God, who is infinite good, and of man's relationship to Him.

Christ Jesus taught that God is our loving Father and we are His beloved children. He said, John's Gospel records, "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. The Master lived among mankind and showed us that God is merciful, loving. He demonstrated God's will by healing disease and sin. He quieted fear and stilled storms. There is no indication anywhere in the Bible that the Master believed it was ever God's will for mankind to be sick or sinful or to suffer.

God is infinite, omnipotent, all-inclusive divine Love. Man, the genuine identity of each of us, is spiritual, is the eternal manifestation or recipient of God's omnipresent goodness. Illness, pain, and death could never be the result of the will of God for his creation. God's will is always for health, joy, harmony, and peace. That is, for the kind of life Christ Jesus promised his followers-- an abundant one. In the proportion we accept these spiritual truths about the divine will and understand them,

we stop believing that God causes illness, misery, or any other evil. In fact, as we learn to acknowledge that we are governed by the will of God and pray to understand and obey it, we'll find such evils gradually disappearing from our lives.

"Our Master taught his disciples one brief prayer, which we name after him the Lord's Prayer, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. And she continues: "Our Master said, 'After this manner therefore pray ye,' and then he gave that prayer which covers all human needs. One line in this wonderful prayer (found in Matthew's Gospel) to me expresses the certainty that God's will for us--which is always good--can be acknowledged

and obeyed here and now. It is: "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

In the proportion that we cease believing that God can be both good and evil, and begin to live in obedience to the will of our all-loving, all-good Father, God, will heaven on earth begin to appear. This is God's will for His children--for you and me. God is willing. We can be too.

You can find more articles about spiritual healing in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine.